This invention relates to camera mounts, and particularly to such mounts for adapting field portable cameras to fit on studio mounts and tripod bases.
In the television art, field-portable cameras of lightweight and compact construction are used for news gathering and other field uses, while in the studio, larger more elaborate cameras are mounted on cranes, tripods or heavy wheeled bases. In the interests of flexibility and economy, it has lately become the practice to provide special housings for adapting portable cameras to studio mounts, such housings being arranged, first, to solidly mount the portable camera; second, to carry the more elaborate electronic and other equipment associated with studio cameras; and, third, to attach solidly to the tripod or other studio base required.
A common form of special housing includes or is comprised by a front plate with a bottom plate extending horizontally from the bottom edge of the front plate to support the bottom of the camera and to attach to the studio base. The lens then is attached solidly to the camera, e.g., by means of a bayonet-ring coupling, and extends from the camera through an opening in the front plate, which does not directly support either the camera or the lens.
When very large lenses are to be employed, however, special problems arise. Such large lenses may weigh nearly as much as the portable camera itself. Consequently, the lens assembly tends to sag out of its delicate optical alignment with the camera, and requires separate bracing, usually in the form of cantilever-type extension brackets. The resulting assembly is often awkward, cumbersome, and visually unpleasing.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a studio mount for portable cameras and heavy lens assemblies in which optical alignment of camera and lens is preserved without the need for cantilever extension brackets for the lens;
It is another object of the invention to provide a studio mount for portable cameras in which moments exerted by the camera are precisely countered.